MrLite MX4 XR-E R2 DOA[fixed]

Bought this when the BLF custom was starting, and received it a week ago. As I was away at work, only opened the package from lightake today. The light was loose in the Mr.Lite package. The plastic "clip" doesn't hold the light at all. Thought to myself that this wasn't very nice and could have done some damage to the light.

Opened the package and the light had no scratches.That was nice! Placed a 16340(fully charged) on it, and nothing happened. Crap! Tried with a CR123 and same thing. Nothing! Double crap! Tried going around the rear clickie with the DMM and nothing! Triple crap!

Opened google and searched for mr.lite doesn't work and got the link to brted's review of the AA one. Started reading it and found out that brted's one was DOA also. Quadruple crap!

But he managed to fix it! triple and a half crap!

He understood that something was not connecting, and did solder something, and it works now. I don't have the knowledge, nor the tools to fix this light! Quintuple crap!

I bought it at lightake. Saw the lightake thread, and their take on RMAs... almost cried. Sextuple crap!

So I am pretty much disapointed right now, but I hope that you guy's could help me. As any thread isn't complete with pictures, here are some.

The semi-exploded light.

Comparison with some 16340 lights and a shinny AAA.

The pill 1. The pill 2. The pill 3.

I wonder if just looking at the pics of the pill you could detect the fault and what do I have to do, to get it running again. I can go to a electronic-fix-anything-store and they could soulder for me. I just got to say to them: give a blob of solder from here, to there... for instance. Don't now if that's possible.

Hope you can help me.

My first DOA, that some lubing, sanding, cleaning and tightening didn't fix! This is a first!

C R A P !

the only thing i can see and please correct me if i'm wrong but the large blob of soldier on the out ring of the pill doesn't seem to be connected to anything and should bridge the pill to the outside of the light to complete the negative part of the circuit..

If that is the case then it's a very easy and quick fix.

They have a small contact issue ...

The neg ring on the driver board [ outer ] needs to make contact with the body [ battery ] tube ...

Either a small tab of solder , or try turning the battery tube around to see if it makes better contact ..

Yes you need to increase the size of the solder so it makes contact with the outer edge of the pill.

Thanks for your help!

Let's see if I understood...

I have to make a new contact between the outer ring and the pill, but with how much solder?

The red is the solder, the grey is the pill, the golden is the outer ring, the black is the flashlight body.(i'll be printing this to show to the solder guy)

Can I solder the ring to the pill, but without the solder touching the flashlight body(A) or touching the flashlight body(B)?

Again, many thanks for your help!

BLF rules!

You have got it.

Treatment A will be fine, there is plenty metal-metal contact between the pill and the body. It won't hurt anything using version B but might make it harder to screw the pill in.

You do a lot better diagrams than I do.

Wow, that was the best request for help ever seen. If that doesent help let us know the next step involves a multimeter tho. :)

Personally if the soldering fails i would contact manafont for a solution. We still have to test their rma policy. :P

I ordered a few things and all was ok. LT gave me trouble in 1 occasion and does not reply in the last one. They could have brushed me off but instead they don't even reply.

Well, the new solder fixed the problem. Kind of. It worked, but flickered a lot.

It has 4 modes. Medium-Low-high-strobe(very fast one).

I screwed and unscrewed the body, and the flickering continued. Took the tailcap off to measure the Amps and got these results:

medium: 0.98amp

low: 0.43amp

high1.39amp

It didn't flicker as much as with the tailcap on, I believe after a couple of sets it didn't flicker at all.

Screwed the tailcap on, and puff. The light didn't work. Took it off and made the connection with the DMMeter and it works.

Unscrewed the tailcap to see if anything was broken, but everything seemed fine. Mounted the tailcap and it still doesn't work.

Probably the problem is now on the tailcap. Don't now what to do now. Could you give me more advices?

Took pics from the tailcap parts. Hope you can see what the problem is...

Parts, bottom of the clicky thing, top of the clicky.

Use the multimeter on ohm setting to identify if the switch is working for starters.

Did it. Had the exact same values like on this thread.

Made a sketch of the tailcap. Hope you could give me directions using it, so I can see what and where to do.

After screwing and unscrewing and cursing and smoking and pulling out hairs and foaming from the mouth, went back to the first problem. The solder. Went to my uncle's and he made a new connection. Problem solved. It runs again. After all it wasn't the tailcap. It was a faulty solder.( The guy that solder the first one will be hearing from me tomorrow!) The thing is that it still flickers. It is not random flickering. It's similar to a strobe. But very fast one. It only flickers on med and high, and after half a second after changing modes or turning on. Why does this happen? Is this PWM?

Was disapointed with the light not working, and now am even more disapointed.

But enough with the bad stuff. The light output is weaker than expected, but it not weak at all. Way weaker than the MX Power ML-310, the other Tir optics light I have, but it throws a 4meter ball of usable light at 40meters. Quite nice.

Using it at close range, I can't see any diference between the med and high. Can only notice it when using it outdoors.

The beam is quite stange indoors. There is a lot of rainbow rings and in the center -the ball of light is slightly offcentered- a warmish white ball. Nothing of this happens outdoors.

It is a very sturdy light, but as stated in the AA BLF's reviews, won't be using this light with rain. Doesn't have o-rings at the clickie side.

I like it's simple looks, but could have more grip. It's quite slippery on the hand.

Does not have a mode memory, as far as I can see. After 1 second of turn off, it goes to medium.

So that's it. Don't recomend this light. Performance per dolar is very low on this light. Does look good though...

Can't take decent pictures of the beam, but will be uploading a video to Youtube, so you can see the flickering.

The flickering is poor contact ... try the battery tube both ways ...

try a larger blob of solder so that the battery tube screws down onto it tight [ tight ] , you want to see a mark where it tightens onto the solder ...

Will do that. Well, not me but someone that has a soldering iron, solder and skills.

Here is the video.

Not much info in the video as your camera autocompensate the lighting. PWM can be observed nicely tho. :) Glad you solved the problem.

I too had greater expectations for this light.

You may have issues with the reflecter crushing on the emitter .. try spinning out the slug a little and give just a little room at the front .Make sure the emitter is on the heat sink and isn't just floating above it . I think these lights have a tendancy to crush the guts out of it's self and fail .try jumping between body and battery without all the pressure on the front end and if it lights up try pressing down on the battery with your finger and jump at the same time ...Excessive pressure was shutting down my light .I think it's the reflector either shorting the emitter or gremlins..

Either way ...mr lite needs a boot in the pants

Sorry about the poor video. I'ts my cellphone camera, so no high quality...

Went to the same guy(poor guy... lol) and he made another connection. This time higher and visibly crushed by the center body. It stopped the flickering.

Unscrued the pill slightly(couple of tryals and errors) and now the ring is centered, and the rainbows diminuished, but still there.

Again, many thanks for every sugestion. If not for you guy's, would have had to sent it back, with all the hassle of RMA request, mail, google translator comunications, yada, yada, yada...

Thank you all!

You're most welcome. That's a good forum job anyway. :P

I would fix the torch myself too. If it was unsolvable i would politely ask them for a suitable and reasonable solution for both. We don't know yet manafont rma policy because no1 had any case opened yet. Good for us and awesome for them. But one thing is sure they have the best communication by far from the most popular HK retailers by personal experience. I sent a few mails to them occasionally and find them very professional and helpful. Also you get a really nice response time and so with an exquisite english nonetheless.

Lastly it was Mr.Lite poor QC that let that happen or HK post handling or legging :)

Ehrrrmm, I purchased this light at Lightake. Not manafont.

Daniel sent me a very polite email, but I kindly denied sending the light back. Did it, because this was a quick and durable fix. Maibe if this was a more complex fix, I would have sent the light back.